50 thoughts on “Hey Tod

        1. I love micros, whether brewery or distillery. Something romantic about creating booze out of the land around you.

          The Grand Traverse Distillery in Traverse City, MI makes one of my favorite ryes of all time. They also don’t ship, so… I get it pretty rarely.Report

          1. “Something romantic about creating booze out of the land around you.”

            This!

            I should try Rye sometime.  My only memory of it was some cheap, nasty stuff someone gave me on my 22nd birthday called Rock ‘N’ Rye, that had large sugar chrysalis floating in it.  It has left an impressions.

            Remind me, Ryan – you’re in Philly?  Or DC?Report

          1. Kitty had Slivovitz several times in Slovenia.  Unfortunately, the Slovenians don’t export the good stuff, they keep it all for themselves.

            I had two glasses of the bottle she brought back.  Stellar stuff.Report

    1. I was out for my birthday last month – at Bourbon in Adams Morgan, if any of you are DCers and looking to share a drink sometime – and I attempted to order a couple different Willetts that turned out to be empty. The bartender, either in frustration or (one hopes) recognizing a good eye, went away for a few minutes and came back with Pappy. It was only the 15 year, but it was still one of the best birthday presents a boy could ask for.Report

  1. Booze, like music, is sometimes an antidote, sometimes an anodyne.   There must be a measure of appropriateness to these things.

    In Phoenix, an arid land, where the afternoon sunlight strikes a man’s forehead like a two by four, nothing was quite so fitting as good gin and quinine water.   Oh we went through beer like water, Fat Tire and various red ales, weissbier figured large, but beer is fundamentally Bavarian style bread, a nutriment and therefore irrelevant to this discussion.

    Of late, I have taken to Kraken Rum.  But this is a frosty clime, where a man is subject to long stretches of filthy confinement behind frost-rimed windows, going out only to give the Husky Dog an excuse for all that fur, that, and to lay dog eggs in the snow.   After such an excursion, the restorative effects of Kraken spiced rum are nonpareil.Report

      1. I see you know nothing about beer, either.

        “Ale” denotes a very large subtype of yeasts and all of the many, many, many beers that are brewed with them.  Ales include everything from India pale ales to Belgian abbey ales to Scotch ales to — technically — stouts.

        Most ale styles are stronger, more strongly flavored, and higher in calories than most lager styles.  There are certainly exceptions, including triple bocks and imperial Pilsners, but if any category of beer counts as “mere cleansed water,” it’s certainly not the ales.

         

         Report

  2. I haven’t had the Pappy’s, but I do like Buffalo Trace.  Blanton’s is good, too.  For the budget-conscious connoisseur, Eagle Rare is very nice as well.  (And of course my old standby, Knob Creek.)Report

      1. I used to drink Makers (and still happily would, if offered some), but haven’t bought it in a long time.  I haven’t tried Bulleit or Four Roses, but I’m making a list and will be exploring.

        And I hope this isn’t a faux pax, but I also like Wild Turkey (86 proof, in the 101 the alcohol overpowers the taste, imo).Report

        1. Bulleit’s rye is a particular favorite, although the bourbon is also very good.

          I have two good friends who refer to the Wild Turkey American Honey as “Nightmare Fuel”. My experience with it has been less a nightmare and more the following:

          “Oh, wow, this tastes kind of like candy. I would like some more.”

          *10 hours later*

          “Where am I, and how many people have I killed?”Report

          1. I thought the American Honey concept sounded fantastic, so I eagerly bought it only to find that on my tongue it tastes utterly revolting.  Not candylike, but bitter and oily.  Perhaps I’m lucky and my tastebuds were doing me a favor.

            “Where am I, and how many people have I killed?”

            That’s my experience with Jagermeister.  That’s the one thing in this world that tempts me to believe in demons.  No human could ever have concocted such an evil potion.Report

          2. Woodford Reserve is the preferred bourbon of the Saunders-Better Half household.

            We got a bottle of American Honey for Christmas.  It reminds me mightily of Drambuie.  It is suitable for use in a modified Sazerac, obviating the need for sugar or simple syrup.  The absinth makes it less cloying.Report

  3. I’ve an abundance of good Scotch after the holidays so I haven’t had moment to step back into the Bourbon. Maker’s is my go-to choice when I do, it has such a nice apple-pie flavor to it.Report

    1.  it has such a nice apple-pie flavor to it.

      Oddly enough, the Wife loves Maker’s Mark because she’s convinced it has a nice banana flavor to it (I don’t see this, either).  We figured out that the reason for this has to do with the way her mother made Bananas Foster when she was a kid.

      As a card-carrying Communist, I like neither apple pie nor Bananas Foster.  Thankfully, Maker’s Mark tastes like neither to me, but instead tastes of caramel and cherries.Report

      1. I definitely get caramel and cherries. Here’s a fun thing a friend did last summer for a roof party (in DC, in August, which is roughly equivalent to drowning in air): he put some cherry syrup in Maker’s, then blended it with ice. It was the most delicious Slurpee in history, although I did quite literally sweat red for a day or two after (YMMV, I hope).Report

        1. My ancestry goes back to coastal Virginia in the late 1600s.  One of my ancestors was convicted of jury tampering.   It seems he took the jurors out fishing and filled them with something called Cherry Bounce.   They came back to court the next day, hung over and useless.Report

Comments are closed.